In case you didn’t want to look through the entire 288-page Bicentennial Bikeways Master Plan on your own, I thought it could be useful to hit some highlights. I think the maps are the most fun, so we’ll start with those.
Regional Map (left) and Downtown Map (right)
(click on maps to expand)
There are 540 miles of recommended bikeways, at a cost of $148.3 million. 80% of the cost is for new paths, although it’s only 31% of the mileage. The cost by facility type is as follows:
| Bicycle Facility Type | Mileage | %Mileage | Total Cost | %Cost | Cost per Mile |
| Bike Boulevard | 45.6 | 8.4% | $2,143,035 | 1.4% | $46,996 |
| Lane | 97.4 | 18.0% | $1,204,212 | 0.8% | $12,364 |
| Lane with Road Diet | 61.6 | 11.4% | $5,736,816 | 3.9% | $93,130 |
| Lane with Road Widening | 61.2 | 11.3% | $14,129,902 | 9.5% | $230,881 |
| Path (includes bike-ped bridges) | 167.9 | 31.1% | $118,462,807 | 79.9% | $705,556 |
| Paved Shoulder | 31.4 | 5.8% | $6,443,392 | 4.3% | $205,204 |
| Signed Shared Route/Alleys | 73.4 | 13.6% | $167,651 | 0.1% | $2,284 |
| Shared Lane Markings | 1.6 | 0.3% | $8,260 | 0.0% | $5,163 |
| TOTAL | 540.1 | 100.0% | $148,296,075 | 100.0% | $274,572 |
Alta Planning recommended 13 “high priority” demonstration projects. These are meant to be diverse and geographically dispersed to show the community the benefits of various types of bikeways.
1. Hilltop Connector – On-street route to new Scioto River Bridge – $81,100
2. High Street Share the Road Campaign – $101,600 (includes $60,000 for study of bike lanes and bus-bike lanes)
3. Confluence Bridge – East of SR-315 near North Bank Park. Connect to Neil Ave and Town St in Franklinton – $7,560,500
4. Railroad Grade Crossing Improvements – $361,000
- McKinley & Harrison
- Refugee & Hines
- Williams Rd – west of Speedway Ln
- Mound St – west of Central
- Edgehill Rd – south of Fifth Ave
- Hall Rd – east of Norton Rd
5. Olentangy Trail to Alum Creek Trail Connector – $1,189,800 (includes $1,178,000 for shared use path)
6. Trabue Rd/Renner Rd Side Path and Bike Lanes – Spindler to Lake Shore Dr – $1,936,300
7. Town St/Bryden Rd East Side Bike Boulevard – $86,700 for Town/Bryden Option, $71,200 for Oak St Option
8. SR-161 Side Path – Sawmill to Linworth – $1,267,700
9. Williams Rd Bike Lanes – High St to Alum Creek Trail – $234,100
10. Sullivant Bike Lanes (including road diet) and Bike Boulevard in alley to the south – $557,200
11. Hudson/Joyce/17th Bike Lanes – $484,700 (option to build part of WAD Bikeway for $1,191,300)
12. Stelzer/James Side Path and/or Lanes – $2,690,600
13. Milton Ave Bike Boulevard – $32,400
My Two Cents
I want to start by saying that overall, I love the plan. I think it is comprehensive, covers many innovative treatments, and even helps the city to prioritize projects, find funding sources, and draft policy. I do have a couple of comments though.
One is that I feel like the concept of bicycle boulevards has been compromised in the proposed Town/Bryden project. The report reads “consider installing traffic calming along these roadways.” Consider installing traffic calming elements? If you don’t have traffic calming elements, you don’t have a bike boulevard. It’s just signing and striping. There’s nothing wrong with a signed route or shared bike lanes, but painting the word “BLVD” on the street and putting up some way-finding signs doesn’t make it a bike boulevard. The boulevard has to have traffic control priority for bikes (preferably zero stop signs), yet still discourage automobile traffic, probably through strategically-placed traffic calming elements. These will include half-closures with gaps for bikes, traffic circles, maybe speed humps (but not the 12′ parabolic design), etc… The report does a better job defining “Bicycle Boluevard” in Chapter 8.
That brings me to my biggest concern, this bike boulevard in an alley south of Sullivant Avenue from Demorest to Catherine (high priority project #10). How is this supposed to work? As I said, a bike boulevard has to have traffic control priority for bicycles. Are you really going to put stop signs on a bunch of side streets at an alley? If you did, would cars actually come to a complete stop? My professional experience says no, which would make this very dangerous for cyclists, who would assume that the cars would stop. If you didn’t put stop signs on the side streets, then bikes would still have to be extremely cautions at every sidewalk and street, making the bike boulevard just about useless. Aside from the limited functionality, I think it would be dangerous. Alleys are designed for low-volume local access, not heavy traffic volumes (bikes or cars). This is because there are countless blind corners in alleys. You can’t easily see a car backing out of a garage. You can’t easily see pedestrians on the perpendicular sidewalks. In downtown, alleys are likely to be congested with freight delivery trucks. I can understand the desire to spruce up the alleys, but I don’t yet see how they will function well or safely as a long-distance bikeway. I would recommend using residential streets like Race, Springmont, Whitehead, and Walsh for a bike boulevard south of Sullivant
I whole-heartedly agree with you anti-alley position. Alleys are horrendous for visibility and cars think, just like cyclists would, that there’s probably no one else using it. Coming down the alley between 3rd and 4th Downtown isn’t bad, but you definitely must stop at each sign, as a rolling stop doesn’t work on blind corners.
I’m definitely for speed humps (gradual) vs speed bumps (short, abrasive, and could knock you off your bike). I’m not sure what you mean by half-closures with gaps, you mean like this?
I also think bollards would be good too
(Hope those work)
I talked to my favorite bikeway designer at work today at the City of Chicago Department of Transportation. He also agrees that alleys aren’t a good idea for bikeways. Hopefully Columbus’ traffic engineers will nix that idea.
By half closure I mean something like this. Diagonal diverters and median blockers could also play a role in reducing vehicle traffic, but allowing bike traffic. Bollards would work much in the same way as any curbed concrete planter, but you have to be careful that the bollard itself doesn’t become a fixed hazardous object for cyclists. The good thing about bollards is that they can be removed by the fire department (not sure how quickly) in an emergency.
Geographically diverse unless you live towards the SE side of town. Reynoldsburg? Pickerington? Gahanna? Frankly, I’m too chicken to attempt Livingston all the way downtown — at least too chicken during commuting hours. All I want is a little bit of white paint, not some $80,000 study. I’m tempted to pull a Yehuda Moon and paint them myself…
Columbus Bikeway Plan-always keep that in mind. The cities you speak of are separate entities to the city of Columbus, so this plan has no effect. That said, the city does emphasize working with regional partners to truly expand the paths and lanes throughout the greater area. You also have to look at the feasability. Growth and development have always been auto-centric in those communities compared to old Columbus which has a number of roads easily converted.
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The fire department, police, emergency squad CAN remove bollards in an emergency IF they remember to bring the key!
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Praise for Columbus’ bike plan:
“Columbus’ newly-created 20-year plan includes 31 miles of trails and 58 miles of bike lanes to be added during the next four years alone and has an estimated total cost of $167.6 million that’s coming out of the capital fund once approved as part of the city’s bond measure this November. The city will invest $20 million for implementation of the plan between now and 2012, according to Urban Ventures Coordinator Mike Brown.”
Source: http://citybeat.com/gyrobase/Content?imageIndex=5&oid=oid:145988
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